


Resistence

by threewalls



Series: Schirra [26]
Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: 705 OV, Bad Decisions, F/M, Fights, Rabanastre, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-21
Updated: 2008-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 02:51:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Good help is hard to find. <s>Interregnum.</s> During the Archadian occupation.</p><p><cite>"I made my resolve two years ago. I swore to overcome any hardship I may face."</cite><br/>Ashe</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resistence

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: Final Fantasy XII - Vossler/Ashe - barely contained violence - “ You’re in over your head, Princess.”

The Resistance are fortunate that warehouse walls are thick: Vossler has returned to a brawl. The room is not large, and the crowd three men deep. He cannot see the combatants, but they cannot be armed. Vossler hears only the impact of flesh and bone on flesh, no ring of metal, and this is not a crowd that has seen blood spilt. Not yet.

And then, Vossler hears the jeers: "good one, for a girl," and, "think she'll be this lively on her back?"

No.

Vossler shoulders through the crowd, hard, reaching for the sword that is not at his hip. He curses. He's dressed civilian. They all are, trying to pass without notice, hiding like rats under the city should be theirs, should be hers. The first man to push back against Vossler gets an elbow in his gut, and then the crowd's cheer hushes to gossip's whisper, the men pushing at each other to stand aside. They may not recognise their princess, but they recognise their captain.

Ashelia and her opponent are too involved in their fight to stop. Her teeth are bared and her hair hangs in sweated clumps. Her knuckles are raw. She is outmatched, in height, weight and the scarce skill of lessons snatched early and late and between Vossler's main duties. He has only taught her with weapons in her hands, and it shows.

Her opponent is grinning-- he's right-handed, prefers swords to bow, but Vossler cannot recall the man's name. He curses too many recruits in too short a time. All too many trusted men a year dead.

"Soldier, stand down!"

Vossler's call breaks the fight. Her opponent retreats to the far edge of the crowd, no longer grinning, but it is Ashelia's reaction that troubles Vossler. Her defensive stance had given the slimmest illusion of concealing her weakness, her winding, but she sheds that protection now. She stumbles towards Vossler, her left arm curled about her mid-section, the right reaching for his support.

"They were sparring hand-to-hand. I asked for instruction, which _he_ took as invitation for what you have seen."

The relief on her face, now beatific, is more painful to see than her hurts. Ashelia is looking only at Vossler, and so she does not see that the crowd is still against her. He does not step forward.

"I told you to remain in my quarters."

"Vossler?"

"We will speak of this later."

Ashelia's face shutters and she squares her shoulders, crossing her arms, but Vossler cannot allow her to challenge him. These are her men, and Vossler must command their respect to see her will done. He will make her understand, later.

Vossler stares at the crowd, parting a path to his door. Ashelia does not argue, does not look back, but walks straight and shuts the door behind her. The lock scrapes.

Vossler demands an explanation before he demands a name. And the explanation is simple, freely offered: Ashelia has two rings-- the wife of a comrade who died at Nalbina, Vossler had told them himself-- while Vossler has none.

"Everyone knows about widows," the man said, into the silence Vossler had not yet broken. He was still grinning, although Vossler was not. "Especially the young ones."

The crowd breaks into snickers. Vossler is reminded that these men are young, that they are not yet soldiers with a soldier's discipline, let alone a knight's honour. Archadia decimated the entire Dalmascan armed forces, standing army and reserves, recruits and veterans. The Order was annihilated. Vossler has few true soldiers, hardened soldiers, training his new recruits in the Westersand, but he is the only man in this room that fought for Dalmasca while she was still free.

"Young widows?" Vossler asks. "How many of you have come to me because your cousin, your sister-- your mother, lost her man in the war and the Archadians know what _everyone_ knows about widows? Are we no better than they?"

"I wasn't-- She's a girl. She didn't want to learn--"

"Should I be training your sisters, your cousins to fight to protect their own honour?"

The crowd is silent, and the man who fought Ashelia finds that his fellows do not stand so close.

Vossler tells the room to prepare for travel. At midnight, they will creep from the city to the desert and they will join their compatriots in the Westersand.

"Fight fiends in the desert, not each other," Vossler says. "And if I have been yet unclear, know that any man that touches Amalia-- will answer to me."

On the other side of the door, Ashelia's arms are still crossed.

"A training mission?"

"Majest--"

"That is not what they call me," she retorts, giving him her back as she walks further into their room. "It is not what you call me."

Ashelia reaches the far wall in few steps, and sits all too gingerly on her cot. Vossler keeps a pace between them. They live in close quarters here, a single store room where his Captain's quarters numbered three and her royal suite was surely more spacious still. Vossler had not had the honour of guarding the palace. Those men were dead, but he was not.

"Amalia," he whispers, bending to be heard. Faram forgive him his informality. "They are not gentlemen. They do not know you."

In the wake of Ondore's false proclamation, Vossler has dared not trust her identity to anyone. He tells recruits that Ashelia is in hiding, in exile, secret and above all, safe. He has invented knights that have not been slain that guard her night and day. The men remember Raminas' funeral, remember Rasler's and have never seen Ashelia's body laid to rest. Such rumours give all Dalmasca hope, though Vossler hates the necessity of each and every lie, but he sees no other path. What would Basch have done, in his place?

"We need every man who will fight. For you, for Dalmasca."

"I know what they fight for." Ashelia wrenches loose her rerebraces. They clatter from her shoulders, the sound echoing on six stone walls.

"I am a woman, Vossler, not a child. He hurt me, and wished to do worse, and those men would have only watched, hoping for their turn."

She bends for her cuisses, cursing as her fingers fumbling with the clasps. A princess should not know those words, should not have cause to use them.

Vossler's mother's household in the East End is almost unmolested by the occupying forces. She is a citizen of the Empire by birth rather than conquest and his Dalmascan father is four years dead. If Vossler could have entrusted Ashelia to his mother, as a maid-servant, as no one, she would have seen daylight and lived in the company of women, not soldiers. But he dares not put her comfort above her safety.

Vossler kneels down to aid her, trying to judge the scope of bruising without seeing the flesh of the woman beneath them. He shouldn't be looking at her bare legs, nor brushing his fingers across the soft, soft skin of her inner thighs when the metalwork and leather peels away.

She seizes his vest, as he rises, the fabric sliding from his shoulders to bunch in her fists. So little could be accident, but not when her hands jump to the ties of his shorts, pulling and stroking within. Vossler reaches for her wrist, and she squeezes.

"--Ashe?"

"How long did you watch, Captain?"

Her grasp shows she is no naïve maiden and Vossler cannot think. He presses her to lie back, lying over her, his knees between her legs. She links her hands behind his neck, and he pushes up her skirt.

With touch, the full weight of his body, Ashe is restless, kicking, scratching his arms, his chest; she's calling out his name, higher and higher. Vossler grabs her hands to hold them down. She settles, limp and he can thrust freely. He can kiss her, her neck, her hair. Her face is turned away. She's already broken, husband dead a year, but tight, so tight it hurts him to enter her. It's been so long; he does not last.

Vossler rolls off, towards the wall. He would not crush her.

Ashe slides to sitting with her feet on the floor. Vossler thinks of kissing her, but she steps up out of reach. He kisses his knuckles instead and uses that fist to make the sign of the Six across his chest. The scratches she'd left sting with his sweat.

Vossler watches Ashe extinguish the stones. He does not know if her steps are yet more halting than before. She does not look at him once before the darkness is complete.

He listens to the clips of her boots until they stops, the scrap of the lock. The rustle and clink of cloth and armour. Vossler ties up his shorts.

"Majesty?"

Vossler tries to rise when he feels the cautious touch of her blind hands, but she presses him down. This is but a barrack cot. Vossler has a pallet he unrolled over crates, if he did not sleep standing. Making space for another body leaves his bare back against rough stone. Ashe lies on her side as he does, facing the door. He discovers that she is naked, and then Vossler does not know where to put his arm.

Ashe takes his hanging wrist, and drapes his arm over her waist.

"You will take me to the Westersand, Vossler. Teach me to fight properly."

"Yes, Majesty."

"You are a bad liar," Ashe says, "but they will believe you now. You can protect me now."

What did it matter what Basch would do? He had damned them all.


End file.
